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JN-T
Apr 16, 2022 0:04:22 GMT
Post by Cyggy on Apr 16, 2022 0:04:22 GMT
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JN-T
Apr 16, 2022 15:51:39 GMT
Post by Cyggy on Apr 16, 2022 15:51:39 GMT
For all his faults, I find that he always seemed to give intelligent. well-reasoned and articulate answers at conventions, as evidenced by many Youtube videos of such panels and - importantly - seemingly without any trace of smugness or self-satisfaction that either he or his work were "brilliant".
I think that all three New Who showrunners could learn a lesson from him if they bothered to really look.
I don't think he or his viewpoint of his time on Doctor Who were ever fairly represented or shown in a balanced way throughout the DVD range, with much of the special features being taken up by the Bidmeads and Sawards - who seemed to heap blame on him for anything that went wrong, while neglecting to acknowledge his successes?
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Post by Cyggy on May 1, 2022 19:16:59 GMT
JN-T making the most of the publicity from his crafty "THE POLICE BOX MUST GO!" malarkey......
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JN-T
May 23, 2022 15:29:20 GMT
Post by Cyggy on May 23, 2022 15:29:20 GMT
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Post by sadako on May 27, 2022 18:12:16 GMT
It's complicated....
He comes off as incredibly likable in interviews, but I think the show would have been better off if placed in other hands sooner. Any look behind the scenes begins to reveal a quagmire of ugly, bad decisions, many that just seem petty and self-defeating and not for the show's better. Sometimes admittedly because the figures he employed (Saward, Levine) made a bad partnership where everyone doubled-down on their own worst excesses.
Maybe there was a need at first for a dynamic rejuvenation of the show when the 80's began, but it seemed like for every step forward, there were also several steps back, and by the middle of Davison's era it was like the show was sinking to doing its own worst fanfiction.
Occasionally there'd be rare gems of the era, unlike anything else on TV (Revelation of the Daleks, Enlightenment). Frustratingly there's always the signs of a great era in potencia in there, but most days I just find it more right to think of it as a write-off, and cling to my memories of the 70's.
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JN-T
Jun 22, 2022 17:09:13 GMT
Post by Cyggy on Jun 22, 2022 17:09:13 GMT
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JN-T
Jul 3, 2022 13:41:13 GMT
Post by Cyggy on Jul 3, 2022 13:41:13 GMT
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Post by Cyggy on Jul 4, 2022 9:11:44 GMT
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JN-T
Jul 20, 2022 19:21:35 GMT
Post by Cyggy on Jul 20, 2022 19:21:35 GMT
31Who: Doctor Who Quiz with JNT
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JN-T
Jul 20, 2022 19:32:27 GMT
Post by Cyggy on Jul 20, 2022 19:32:27 GMT
John Nathan Turner & Janet Fielding at PBS Pledge Break
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Post by sadako on Jul 21, 2022 20:24:30 GMT
It's clear he loved the show.
...but not so clear which version of the show he loved.
I didn't feel the 'spirit' was there.
He seemed to have very little love or appreciation for what writers like Robert Holmes, Douglas Adams or Terrance Dicks could do with the show, and so it felt like a miracle we got stories like State of Decay and The Five Doctors at all.
I wouldn't have pegged him as the kind who'd be into the grimdark style of Terminus, Warriors of the Deep, Resurrection of the Daleks which were hardly light entertainment, nor entertaining really, but he always seemed to defend those ones.
He was always championing his era, but I often wondered if he'd actually watched it.
His era just seemed very confused about what it wanted to be. Boot the show into the 80's I guess makes sense, but he seemed to think (at Ian Levine's prompting) that that meant dragging every element of the past with it and not stopping to consider the mess he was ending up with.
I guess if it got him fan accolades he loved that about the show. Gave him a sense he was being an entertainer and appreciated for it. Job satisfaction, but from a fan echo chamber he spent too long around and who seemed to be doing a lot of the navigating for him.
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JN-T
Aug 4, 2022 22:37:00 GMT
GC likes this
Post by Cyggy on Aug 4, 2022 22:37:00 GMT
JNT: Good Or Bad?
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Post by sadako on Aug 6, 2022 13:09:56 GMT
In terms of the need for a change after the comedic Williams era, most days I think the show just needed to do more of the stuff that worked about the Williams era, and improve on that. Such as the intelligent themes of City of Death, the slicker directing and editing of Destiny of the Daleks, Romana being the Doctor's smartest companion (a sign that the show was becoming something more progressive before JNT decided the companions should be more like Peri).
All these things are, to my mind, just what an 80's audience would've been in tune with. When I look at City of Death I see a storytelling style that really could've been the better future for the show than miserable, insular nonsense like Terminus or Attack of the Cybermen.
In terms of what needed to be changed.... well I think the opening scene of Horns of Nimon says it all. The show had slacked too much when it came to the need to hook the audience with a dramatic opener. The show just wasn't doing that anymore (in the main), and I think if there was a sense of improvement under JNT, it was that we were beginning to get dramatic opening scenes that served that purpose again to get the audience involved and paying attention.
The problem is, it seemed to me that with JNT's sweeping changes, a lot of the good stuff got chucked out completely (Romana left, we never saw the likes of City of Death again).... what replaced it worked less (the three companions set-up was very awkward, barely managed properly -i.e. Nyssa's bereavement falls completely by the wayside-, and lacked the graspable simplicity of the days when Sarah, Leela or Romana was our companion)....
....and worse, all the stuff JNT did retain or dig up from the show's past, was all the stuff the show actually needed to leave in the past. The Master, the Silurians & Sea Devils, all should've just been left in the Pertwee era, and it has to be emphasised that Hinchcliffe and Williams knew this, they knew they were making the show for a mainstream audience, not die-hard fans, and yet now their wisdom was overturned.
The problem with assessing Season 18 as a starter is that we had Adric, Tegan and the Master dumped on us, and yet we didn't get a sense of whether their dynamic was really going to work, or indeed how obnoxious they were going to be. We also didn't know that the loose ends and dramatic implications of Logopolis would be completely ignored and rendered hollow. So whilst Season 18 feels a strong beginner, all the mis-steps start there and would've been a problem even if JNT had left with Tom.
It is possible if JNT had done just one season that made the show feel like serious business again, he would've been good for the show. I tend toward Eric Saward's account that JNT could be a real problematic control freak, but in Season 18 that was probably what was needed to shape things up. After that he was a liability who to my mind dragged the series off course by force of will simply because he wouldn't be questioned in what he thought was right.
It is true he kept the show going, but most days I think damage limitation (i.e. just ending it on Logopolis) would've been better.
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Post by burunguy5 on Aug 6, 2022 14:12:41 GMT
JNT I think was a good producer to be honest.
Things he did well.
He brought the Cybermen back and made them a big deal again. After the 70s when they had appeared in one lame story, they were in danger of being forgotten, but with great stories like Earthshock, Attack of the Cybermen, they became the other big foes.
He produced some of the greatest stories of all time. For all people knock his era, I reckon about 99 percent of fans would include more than a few stories from the JNT era in their top ten. In fact more than any other producer, though to be fair he was there longer LOL, but still.
He had a decent handle on the Doctors character, despite a few shitty things like choking Peri and the sixth Doctors costume, he did a good job of developing the Doctor and taking him in new directions like in the seventh doctors era, whilst not smashing up the past needlessly.
He cast three great actors in the role, who were all dedicated to the character.
He cast Anthony Ainley, the last great Master and whilst he overused the villain, overall I think he also in some ways made the Master more menacing and dangerous and I'd say the most memorable Master/Doctor confrontation, the end of Survival, happened in his era.
Also he was the one that really helped it catch on in America, promoting it harder over there and cultivating its fanbase.
All of these things outweigh the bad he did IMO.
That said however his mistakes were more glaring an those of other classic era producers like Williams, Hinchcliff, Letts or Lambert.
He didn't understand the limits of the shows budget. All of the previous producers did stories with crappy monsters, but these were usually one offs, early in their reign or perhaps they'd been conned like Invasion of the Dinosaurs. JNT however ran into this problem all the time. He tried to make the show compete with big budge films and the results were always laughable and I think contributed to DW having a terrible reputation for effects.
The Mara, the Magma beast, the Myrka, the Tractators, all shockingly bad effects even by the standards of 60s Who never mind the 80s.
He also I think during the later Davison and Colin Baker era became the closest thing the show had to a showrunner during the classic era, in that whatever he wanted, happened. I think this happened for two reasons. Eric Saward was not that confrontational a person and often told John he thought everything he did was great. Colin mentions this that Saward would always bitch about JNT to Colin, but never to his face. Also the success of the show in the Davison era, in the UK, with fans and abroad went to his head. He started to think he was Mr DW in the media.
This was why we got Colin's coat, even though Colin hated it, why Bonnie Langford was cast, and numerous other things that clearly wouldn't have happened if Saward had made his feelings more clear. Eventually however it all backfired on JNT when Saward exploded, though I will say that I think in some ways this horrible experience did benefit JNT as a producer, as for the McCoy era I think he became more open to listening to other people.
DW is at its best when it is the work of several people. The actor, the producer, the script editor, the writer of the story all have to have a say in the show, and its the producers job to try and merge their visions together and take what works from all of them. The Pertwee era was run like this for instance. Terrance Dicks stopped Barry Letts from making it too preachy, whilst at the same time Barry did bring the show into modern times more than Dicks would have done. Dicks wanted the female companions to be wimpy, damsels in distress who would cry and scream, whilst Barry insisted that they be more proactive like Liz, Sarah and even Jo. Pertwee meanwhile obvs brought numerous aspects of his own persona into the role, like his love of cars, fancy clothes and fighting etc, whilst the pool of great writers like Nation, Hulke, Holmes etc gave the show a wide range of stories.
JNT however again in the Colin Baker era, had no one to reel him in, hence why poor Colin didn't get as fair a crack at the role as Jon Pertwee. However in the McCoy era, I think that we are back to all of them getting a fair say and holding each others excesses back.
Cartmel for instance I think held JNT's panto and light entertainment sensibilities back, whilst JNT stopped Cartmel from revealing too much about the Doctor and being too pretentious, and McCoy similarly got more say in his Doctor I feel than Colin.
Still ultimately the main reasons the show died in the 80s and the main things wrong with his era aren't actually his fault.
I've been through it before, but the show was actively sabotaged during the 80s. There is no use in denying it, because the facts back it up. His two worst seasons, Trial and season 24, are both shit because of behind the scenes crap, like Saward quitting, Bob Holmes dying, and Michael Grade telling JNT to make it lighter and sillier to counteract the claims that it was too violent. (Hence why after Grade left after season 24, the show went for the darker portrayal of the 7th that it had wanted from the start.)
Finally compared to what came after, well it has to be said that JNT was someone who had everything against him in terms of support from the BBC and the mainstream, cunty media, yet managed to turn it around and create things like Remembrance of the Daleks, Curse of Fenric and finish the show on a high. The new who lot meanwhile with all the support in the world have not only trashed the show, and made it hard for the next team to go on, but they have actually dragged it to greater lows of mainstream popularity too.
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Post by GC on Aug 6, 2022 17:50:29 GMT
I always felt if he'd quit when Davison went the good stuff would've outweighed the bad.
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